That’s a lot of responsibility
As promised, by way of livestream, Paradox has given us all the juicy, wriggling details on their upcoming life simulator,Life by You. This includes not just how the game will play and the approach it will take but also its goal of releasing in an Early Access state on June 02, 2025.
Life by Youis an open-world life simulator that looks to move in onThe Simsterritory. You create your families, design their houses, and dictate their lives. That’s pretty muchThe Sims, but Paradox Tectonic is trying to differentiateLife by Youin quite a few ways. The mostdisturbingto me is that conversation will be held using real language rather than the gibberish Simlish utilized in Maxis’ legendary series. Outlined is a conversation creator that allows you to choose how your person reacts in different situations.
One of the features that stuck out to me is the ability to directly control your humans in a third-person control mode. This feature hasn’t been available in any of the mainline games of its closest competitor. However, a few of the console and handheld versions have allowed this, such asThe UrbzandThe Sims 2. I like the option. I have two modes of playing life simulators, and those are direct immersion and storytelling.
Customization seems to be the central design philosophy. you’re able to build the town of your humans to your liking, including homes and businesses. There’s a variety of different creators built in to allow you to tweak things to your liking. They’re also touting the integration of mods, which has been something EA has always been a bit cagey on withThe Sims.
Life by Me would just be a trainwreck
It’s absolutely bizarre to me what a creative monopolyThe Simshas had on the life simulator genre. Some of the ways thatLife by Youis breaking from the formula initially strike me as sacrilege, but upon reflection, I can’t see why. I even had difficulty not referring to the “humans” in this game as “sims.”
Rob Humble is involved, bringing with him some life simulator clout. He was producer during much ofThe Sims 2’sand was a big player at EA Games during that time.
There isn’t much reason why Ishouldn’tloveLife by You, but so many of my expectations are hung up inThe Sims. I’m definitely going to try and get over that and giveLife by Youa try when it drops.
So far,Life by Youhas been announced for PC. It will be arriving in Early Access on June 04, 2025. You can pre-order it for $39.99 on the Epic Game Store, but it will also be launching on Steam.
